Wednesday, December 21, 2016

I’ve debated internally on whether I should write about the Aleppo situation so soon after detailing the travails of Bana Alabed, her siblings, and her mother. But seeing how events in the region have suddenly begun changing at lightning speed I feel another update on the situation is warranted.

And in a way, this could be considered an attempt at doing what the besieged and potentially doomed residents of eastern Aleppo are asking the international community to do even as they await evacuation or annihilation. That troubled city in Syria is commanding the world’s attention once more, and countries all over are reacting accordingly.

Humanitarian concerns have never been so in the forefront of the news as now, with the Syrian military and allied paramilitary forces fighting for the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad just about finished in securing the eastern half of the unfortunate city of Aleppo, where the bulk of anti-Assad insurgent groups that have been active since the heyday of the “Arab Spring” are close to making what appears to be their last stand in the face of artillery and airstrikes. For the city residents who have not left the embattled sector all this time, Bana’s family included, it’s been understood that they stand with the rebels and it’s feared that they too will share the same fate.

With dark clouds of possible inhumanity looming so dangerously over that part of the Middle East, the French capital of Paris has decided to declare their solidarity for the plight of eastern Aleppo by using their iconic landmark the Eiffel Tower. On the evening of Wednesday December 14, the usually brightly-lit structure was plunged into darkness at 8PM Paris time, by order of Mayor Anne Hidalgo. In a statement Mayor Hidalgo described the switching off of the Eiffel Tower’s lights as a symbolic measure, both to “express support for the besieged inhabitants of Aleppo” and to “call out the international community again on the urgency to act”.

The situation on the key Syrian city has remained chaotic all week, with regime forces closing in on the remaining pockets of rebel resistance while the trapped people appeal repeatedly to humanitarian causes in order to be evacuated from the combat zone without being set upon by soldiers for their tacit approval of the insurgency. A ceasefire between the two camps was brokered by Al-Assadsupporter Russia on Tuesday, but was immediately sundered by further hostilities until another truce was settled Wednesday by Russia.

Paris has long used the Eiffel Tower as a sounding board of their shows of international solidarity, lighting in colors of the Belgian flag after the Belgium terror attacks in March, then in rainbow colors after the Orlando Pulse gay nightclub massacre.